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I have been tasked by our airport manager to head up a flight instructor symposium to discuss the matter of radio communications. As the traffic volumes have increased around here the congestion and confusion on the radio has reached the point that it is becoming a safety concern. I was bestowed a similar honor a couple years ago by our local FSS specialist to come up with a solution the folks doing run-ups and the like at the hold line, and by doing so blocking access to the runway. It was hard to believe you would really have to tell someone not to sit at the hold line for 5 minutes while a fire bomber sat behind them waiting to depart, but there it was! Some signage and a blurb in the supplement have done wonders. Now they are looking for some help on the air-side.
There is a radio on my office counter so I get to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. Below is a listing of some of the more useless thinks I hear that for whatever reason appears to be making its way into the everyday lingo.
Jeff
There is a radio on my office counter so I get to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. Below is a listing of some of the more useless thinks I hear that for whatever reason appears to be making its way into the everyday lingo.
- Saying “traffic” at the end of every transmission. Once at the beginning is enough, if you want to repeat the facility at the end, that’s fine, but adding traffic to it as well is just a waste of air time. I can’t say I ever remember hearing the airlines ever say “Center” at the end of every transmission, so why are we teaching students to sound like goofs?
- Using the color of your plane rather than your registration. Red/white Cessna is fine for ground ops, but means little in the air where it matters most. Unless you are right on top of me, all you are is a dark silhouette. At least with the aircraft registration I can see you on the ADS-B that is in more and more cockpits.
- Using your certification basis rather than your type. Calling “Blue/white experimental” tells the rest of us absolutely nothing, you might as well just say “airplane” for all the good it does. Experimental what? For example, I own 5 Experimentals: A Glasair, 65 hp Bowers FlyBaby, Jantar Glider, Steen Skybolt, and a North American T28B. Something a little more descriptive is helpful when trying to figure who is who, and what type of flight profile to expect. If you feel ATC needs to know your experiential status, fine, tell them; once. Then give the rest of us a hint of what to be looking for.
- Using instrument approach intersections/waypoints as your location. To the TRACON operator, fine, they have them on their screen, to the rest of us: Blue/white Cessna is OWGAT inbound is just about as helpful as saying nothing at all. I fly instruments and other than knowing OWGAT is out to the west on one of the approaches, I couldn’t tell you much more than that. To the average VFR pilot, it means even less, like nothing. If you are 12 miles to the west, just say so. And please remember, give your position from the airport, not the direction you are going. You might be heading East, but you are actually West of the airport!
- “Last Call” Is your regular job at a bar?? Unless you just want to announce on the air your “rube” status, just say departing the pattern to whatever direction you are going.
- And let us not forget the infamous: “Any traffic in the area, please advise” I guess the one good thing about this call is it tells everyone else that the person using it either hasn’t been paying attention, or feels it’s the other pilots job to brief them on what is going on. There was an interesting discussion on Pilot Workshops on this very phrase; the response was something like 20:1 against its use. As one person put it: “It’s like fingernails on the chalkboard” Don’t use it, just pay attention and do your part with clear and concise radio/position calls.
- Announcing on the CTAF that you are taxing to the pumps or crossing a runway not in use. If nothing is going on it matters little, but when the pattern is full it is nice to be able to hear where the traffic is that is in the air and not have the transmission stepped on by the person going to the pumps for gas.
- Flying over your pattern to go out and turn around so you can re-enter on a 45 to downwind and by doing so fly right in from of me on downwind at my pattern altitude. I get why the flight schools like this procedure, they get an additional 1/10 on the Hobbs. I recall in the past descending in the pattern was considered a bad idea, what changed?
- Simply not paying attention before keying the mic. Like little kids that just start talking in the middle of a conversation, I hear far too many people start talking right in the middle of another aircraft picking up a clearance, etc.
- I know a lot of them are students, or just inexperienced pilots, but the law of primacy the goofy habits they practice in the beginning will carry on far into the future.
Jeff
